Taylor Jenkins is out as head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Six seasons, 250-214 overall, and 9-14 in the playoffs.
Unbearable.
March 28th, 2025Your loser update: March 28, 2025.
March 28th, 2025The MLB season started yesterday. I guess? Sort of? Apparently, the Cubs and Dodgers played two regular season games in Japan a week or so ago, and the Cubs dropped both?
Shows how much I follow baseball.
Anyway, MLB teams that still have a chance to go 0-162:
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
Detroit Tigers
Texas Rangers
City to be named later Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
New York Mets
Washington Nationals
Atlanta Braves
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Cleveland Indians Guardians won, which is nice. But Lawrence still hasn’t taken me up on my offer to bet $5 on the Guardians to win the World Series. Houston won, which is nice. And shockingly, the White Sox actually won. ESPN picked them to be the worst team in MLB this season, but could they be worse than last year? I think that would be hard.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#145 in a series)
March 27th, 2025Some people might say that Robert Farley, the police chief of North Bergen, New Jersey, has an unusual sense of humor.
Other people might say that he’s an a–hole. Including some of his own officers, who are planning to sue the department.
The chief’s sense of humor includes such hits as:
Michael F. Derin, who worked as a special captain in an administrative role, accused the chief of chasing him around the office before cornering him and poking him with a hypothermic needle through his jeans and into his penis in August 2024.
“When I told chief Farley I was unhappy with his actions, he told me that I didn’t know how to take a joke,” Derin wrote in a notice of claim – the precursor to a lawsuit.
And:
“Chief Farley has, on several occasions, pulled his pants down and defecated on the floor in front of his entire office staff,” Guzman wrote in his notice of claim.
One time he even pooped in the trash can of an office he was moving out of so the next police official moving into the space would find it, Guzman alleged.
And:
And:
And:
These are just allegations, of course. And there are more of them, but those are relatively minor: the usual retaliation and harassment.
Edited to add 3/28: The NYPost has a follow-up story. While these are still allegations, the story includes some photos that would tend to support the claims.
Warning: I don’t usually have to put a content warning on flaming hyenas. But these photos include a shirtless Chief Farley shaving himself (or pretending to shave himself) over a subordinate’s desk. These photos also include a pile of poop, allegedly from the chief, though it is unclear to me if any DNA testing was done to establish that.
Obit watch: March 27, 2025.
March 27th, 2025She was the first woman to serve as mayor of Austin, served as state comptroller, and served on the Texas Railroad Commission. The obits right now seem kind of short, but I remember she was a big deal in Austin and Texas politics when I first moved to Austin.
Clive Revill. Other credits include “Babylon 5”, “Pinky and the Brain”, “Let Him Have It” (which I highly recommend), and a spinoff of a minor SF TV show from the 1960s.
Oleg Gordievsky. He was a Commie spy.
Except he actually wasn’t. He was a double agent for British Intelligence.
In 1985 he was recalled to Moscow, given drugs and interrogated. Someone, it seemed, had tipped off the K.G.B. to the presence of a high-ranking mole in London.
Lacking solid evidence, the Soviets placed him on leave. A few days later he appeared at 7 p.m. on a Moscow street corner, holding a shopping bag. A man soon passed, eating a candy bar. They locked eyes.
That was the signal to activate Operation Pimlico, an emergency extraction. Mr. Gordievsky shook his K.G.B. tail and then hurried to the Finnish border. Two British agents, a man and a woman, along with their baby, awaited him there in their Ford Sierra.
They placed him in the trunk, wrapped in a foil sheet to confuse heat detectors. When dogs at the border grew suspicious, the agents began to change the child’s diaper, filling the car with odors that threw the canines off Mr. Gordievsky’s scent.
When they were finally across, they played Jean Sibelius’s “Finlandia” symphony on the car’s sound system, a signal to Mr. Gordievsky that he was safe.
Back in Moscow, he was sentenced to death in absentia. That sentence has never been rescinded.
L.J. Smith, author. I probably would not have noted this, but she had an interesting career.
She published her first book (The Night of the Solstice, for young readers) in 1987. It wasn’t a bestseller, but it did attract the attention of Alloy Entertainment, “a book packaging and production company that has since been acquired by Warner Brothers”. They hired her to write “The Vampire Diaries” series, and she wrote four of those books between 1991 and 1992.
She also wrote other YA series books. In the late 1990s, though, she stopped writing for a time due to family health issues.
Yes, this is “The Vampire Diaries” that became the CW series. Which may have been part of the problem: Ms. Smith was fired as the writer in 2011. She stated that she thought the publisher wanted “wanted shorter books more closely associated with the TV series”.
But wait, there’s more! She started writing “The Vampire Diaries” fan fiction!
In 2013, Amazon created Kindle Worlds, an online service that gave writers of fan fiction permission to write about certain licensed properties, including Alloy’s “Vampire Diaries” series, and to earn money for their ventures.
In 2014, Ms. Smith became the rare celebrated author to produce fan fiction as a way to recoup characters and story arcs she had lost, publishing a novel and novella in an informal continuation of the “Vampire Diaries.” (Kindle Worlds was discontinued in 2018).
I had actually never heard of “Kindle Worlds”. But I don’t follow fan fiction.
Firings watch.
March 25th, 2025Stanford hit the reset button on their football program.
I mean that semi-literally.
“Since beginning my role as General Manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program. It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change,” Stanford football general manager Andrew Luck said in a statement. “Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor.
“After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program. Coach Taylor has been informed today and the change is effective immediately.”
Per the linked article, Troy Taylor had back-to-back 3-9 seasons. But the bigger problem seems to be: he was a jerk.
According to documents obtained by ESPN, the investigations began after multiple employees filed complaints against Taylor for what they called hostile and aggressive behavior, as well as personal attacks, the reports said. The school hired Kate Weaver Patterson, of KWP Consulting & Mediation, to investigate in spring 2023.
After the first investigation, Taylor signed a warning letter on Feb. 14, 2024, acknowledging he could be fired if the conduct continued, according to the documents. Additional complaints were documented in a second investigation that ended last July 24, but Taylor remained on the job.
The second investigation cited evidence “that this is an ongoing pattern of concerning behavior by Coach Taylor.” It was conducted last June and July by Timothy O’Brien, senior counsel for the Libby, O’Brien, Kingsley & Champion law firm in Maine. O’Brien, who has advised several Division I and Power 5 programs, said in his report that he has never encountered “this palpable level of animosity and disdain” for a university compliance office.
…
…
Obit watch: March 24, 2025.
March 24th, 2025Max Frankel, former executive editor of the New York Times.
Former Congressional representative Mia Love (R – Utah).
Brian James, of The Damned.
The Damned never shook British society, or the rock world at large, like the Sex Pistols, who sneered at the queen, hurled obscenities on television talk shows and had pundits mulling the collapse of Western values. Nor did they play the part of political revolutionaries like the Clash, who were billed as “the only band that matters.”
Nevertheless, the Damned made history. They were the first British punk band to release a single: “New Rose,” written by Mr. James, in October 1976 (the Sex Pistols’ anthemic “Anarchy in the U.K.,” soon followed); the first to release an album, “Damned Damned Damned,” in 1977; and the first to tour the United States.
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
March 23rd, 2025More than $5 worth of entertainment indeed.
Rodney Terry fired as University of Texas men’s basketball coach.
He coached for two seasons, but I can’t find an overall record. Texas was 19-16 this season, 6-12 in conference, and lost their first game in the NCAA tournament to Xavier.
ESPN, who is spinning it more as Texas is going to hire Sean Miller…the current coach at Xavier.
GONZAGA!!!!!!!!
March 23rd, 2025Gonzaga 76, Houston 81.
But hey, they lasted longer than the University of Texas.
All debts have been paid, in front of witnesses. Photos available on request.
And speaking of Rugers…
March 22nd, 2025…some quick random book geekery. “Quick” because I bought two copies of the same book, for reasons.
Obit watch: March 22, 2025.
March 22nd, 2025Foreman’s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the ’80s and Evander Holyfield in the ’90s.
With his fellow heavyweights Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America. The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio.
…
Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; only a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968.
After the fight, Foreman, who was Black, waved a small American flag in the ring, days after the track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched fists during the national anthem to protest the country’s treatment of Black people.
“I was just glad to be an American,” Foreman said afterward. “Some people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.”
…
Obit watch: March 21, 2025.
March 21st, 2025Other credits include “Rubber“, “Viva Laughlin“, “CSI: Original Recipe”, “CSI: Miami”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, and “Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time”.
On a more serious note, the Saturday Movie Group watched “The Siege of Firebase Gloria” recently. I, personally, liked it. I don’t think it is a great war film, but I do think it is a pretty good one. (I would recommend “Go Tell the Spartans” if you haven’t seen it, but “Gloria” is solid.)
Drink!
March 21st, 2025Shot:
A scientist at an isolated Antarctica base allegedly assaulted and sexually harassed colleagues while the team is confined together at the edge of the Earth for a year, according to a shocking new report.
The researcher’s “deeply disturbing” behavior was shared in an email by a fellow team member who was cooped up with him in the SANAE IV base, home to a South African research team.
Inhospitable weather has made it too difficult to evacuate anyone from SANAE IV, meaning everyone is stuck together for the foreseeable future, according to authorities.
Chaser:
Packin’ (random gun crankery)
March 20th, 2025It would not be entirely unfair to say that I am a sucker for concepts. At least when it comes to guns. But a concept has to make sense to me.
I’ve bought into Cooper’s Scout Rifle concept in a big way.
One concept that ended up not making sense to me, was the “car gun” or “truck gun”. I actually did buy into this, and bought a relatively cheap (at the time) Marlin lever action in .30-30 (the poor man’s assault rifle) to use as a “car gun” when Texas instituted legal protection for guns in cars.
But the more I thought about it, the odds of being able to fight my way out to my car, grab my rifle, and go back in to confront the big bad seemed slim. If I’m already at my car, why am I not getting out of there? And it also seemed like a recipe for a rusty or stolen gun. I’m not the only person who feels that way. (I still have that Marlin, now outfitted with XS ghost ring sights.)
Another concept that makes sense to me is the late (and I feel a pang when I say that) John Taffin’s “Perfect Packin’ Pistol”.
That’s a pretty expansive definition, but I understand where he’s coming from. My old Smith and Wesson Kit Gun is, to me, a perfect packin’ pistol for things like casual walks in the woods, plinking at cans, and maybe shooting a vicious squirrel should the occasion arise. It fits easily in a pocket. And if I had to…the mere presence of a firearm, without a shot being fired, often serves as a deterrent. Or something like that, as the “Armed Citizen” column puts it.
As the linked article notes, Lipsey’s and Ruger are introducing a special John Taffin Tribute Perfect Packin’ Pistol. (I hope you can read the article: I am a Handloader subscriber, but it comes up okay for me even though I’m not signed in. I’m using a link I got in a Wolfe Publishing email.)
When I saw that, I kind of wanted one. I still kind of do. But I walked into my gun shop one Saturday, and…
Firings watch.
March 20th, 2025Keith Urgo out as men’s basketball coach of Fordham.
50-49 over three seasons. He was also suspended by the university for four games due to “recruiting violations”.
Very quick legal update.
March 20th, 2025Carl Erik Rinsch has been charged federally with fraud.
Previously on WCD. You may also remember him as “the guy who invested a bunch of the money NetFlix gave him in Dogecoin”.